Group items tagged

Martin Ingram Virtually Everything More posts | Read bio December 28, 2010 - 3:09 P.M. The economics of desktop virtualization 4 Comments TAGS:desktop virtualization, enterprise, finance, government, healthcare, hosted desktop virtualization, PC IT TOPICS:Cloud Computing, Cybercrime & Hacking, Desktop Apps, Emerging Technology, Healthcare IT, Laptops & Netbooks, Virtualization, Windows With Thanksgiving and Christmas behind us and the New Year upon us, it is time to take stock and see what changed for desktop virtualization in 2010.  One thing is very clear: We have moved from desktop virtualization being 'about to take off' to 'has taken off' -- the evidence for this is pretty clear in the number of licenses sold. With volumes sold in the low millions, desktop virtualization is way beyond the tryout and pilot stage. However, desktop virtualization is not yet for every user. There are a number of areas where it's still not a good fit. For example, a user who does not always have access to the Internet from his or her laptop may not be able to use a hosted virtual desktop. This is a problem that will be addressed by client hypervisors in coming years. These provide the management benefits of desktop virtualization to the intermittently connected user. For now, they are very new but will become critical for mobile workers and may also have a major role to play in bringing down the costs of desktop virtualization for non-mobile users as well. Of perhaps more concern is the question of the economic basis for hosted virtual desktops. This has recently become more visible thanks to Microsoft's paper 'VDI TCO Analysis for Office Worker Environments,'  which compares the total cost of ownership of traditional PCs and their virtual desktop alternatives. Their conclusion is that hosted virtual desktops are more expensive to deliver than a traditional, well-managed PC. There are a number of interesting points and conclusions to draw from this document. Firstly, Micros

Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds: Strategies for Online Instruction Clark Aldrich 1 Resenha John Wiley & Sons, 02/10/2009 - 144 páginas Jossey-Bass Guides to Online Teaching and Learning Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds Strategies for Online Instruction Clark Aldrich Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds The infusion of games, simulations, and virtual worlds into online learning can be a transforming experience for both the instructor and the student. This practical guide, written by education game expert Clark Aldrich, shows faculty members and instructional designers how to identify opportunities for building games, simulations, and virtual environments into the curriculum; how to successfully incorporate these interactive environments to enhance student learning; and how to measure the learning outcomes. It also discusses how to build institutional support for using and financing more complex simulations. The book includes frameworks, tips, case studies and other real examples, and resources. Praise for Learning Online with Games, Simulations, and Virtual Worlds "Clark Aldrich provides powerful insights into the dynamic arena of games, simulations, and virtual worlds in a simultaneously entertaining and serious manner as only he can. If you are involved with educating anyone, from your own children to classrooms full of students, you need to devour this book." -- Karl Kapp, assistant director, Institute for Interactive Technologies, Bloomsburg University "At a time when the technologies for e-learning are evolving faster than most people can follow, Aldrich successfully bridges the perceptual gap between virtual worlds, digital games, and educational simulations, and provides educators with all they really need to use this technology to enhance and enrich their e-learning experiences." -- Katrin Becker, instructor, Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, Mount R

emystifying the Economics of Virtualization and Cloud Computing Posted by Michael Vizard Mar 15, 2011 11:51:15 AM Make the Financial Case for Virtualization and Cloud Computing With the advent of virtualization and cloud computing, figuring out the actual cost of enterprise computing has never been more important or complicated. Now that every application to one degree or another is eventually going to wind up sharing IT infrastructure with some other set of applications, ascribing costs to each application gets significantly more difficult. In the past, when every application pretty much had its own servers, the costs were clear, except for mainframe and minicomputer environments that were designed from the ground up to run a symmetric multiprocessing environment that supported multiple applications. But now that virtualization and cloud computing are pushing the concept of shared IT infrastructure across the entire spectrum of IT, application owners want to know what their true costs for running these environments actually will be. In addition, the chief financial officer - along with the rest of the board of directors - is demanding a more line-by-line accounting of the allocation of IT resources. Conceptually, most IT leaders should welcome this increased level of scrutiny. It gives them a chance to show how efficient they can be, which represents a significant change of pace after decades of meetings with senior managers that only really wanted to know what the availability of IT services was without much regard to the actual budget. The challenge facing many IT organizations today, says Chris Pick, chief marketing officer for Apptio, a provider of IT financial management tools that are available as a service, is they just don't have the tools needed to delve into all the financial elements of the overall IT equation. For example, a new survey of 100 CIOs in the U.S. that was conducted by the market research firm Worldwide Executive Council on behal

Springer FNAC Livraria Cultura Livraria Nobel Livraria Saraiva Submarino   Encontrar em uma biblioteca Encontrar livrarias locais Todos os vendedores » Minha biblioteca Meu histórico Livros no Google Play Researching Learning in Virtual Worlds Anna Peachey 0 Resenhas Springer, 15/03/2010 - 196 páginas Most of the chapters in this book are extended papers from Research Learning in Virtual Environments (reLIVE08), an international conference held by the UK Open University in Milton Keynes in November 2008. Authors of the best papers and presentations from the conferences were invited to contribute to Research Learning in Virtual Worlds, the first book to specifically address research methods and related issues for education in virtual worlds. The book covers a range of research undertaken in virtual worlds. It opens with an accessible introduction both to the book and to the subject area, making it an ideal springboard for those who are new to research in this area. The subsequent ten chapters present work covering a range of research methodologies across a broad discipline base, providing essential reading for advanced undergraduate or postgraduate researchers working in education in virtual worlds, and engaging background material for researchers in similar and related disciplines.

A virtual learning environment is a medium of learning where learners go through courses, study materials and learning aids through an online medium. It can be browser-based or a virtual training session through Zoom. Virtual learning offers activities, interactions, and resources within a course structure and provides different levels of assessment. Given this context, learners can access learning materials through peer-to-peer collaboration networks such as forums. As social learning is a continuous process of learning from other people within and outside the organization, it can be integrated into virtual learning through various means.

Book Reviews Book title: Digitisation Perspectives Type: book Author: Ruth Rikowski Year: 2010 Edition: 1st ISBN: 9460912982 Publisher: Sense Publishers Publisher's Description: This book examines various views and perspectives on digitisation. As Simon Tanner, Director Digital Consultancy, King's College London says in the Foreword: "Digitisation has become a cultural, scholastic, economic and political imperative and raises many issues for our consideration." Furthermore, that the book: "...seeks to address and answer some of the big questions of digitisation... It succeeds on many levels..." There are 22 contributors in the book, all experts in their fields. The book is divided into six parts: Part 1: 'Background and Overview to Digitisation and Digital Libraries' Part 2: 'Digitisation and Higher Education' Part 3: 'Digitisation and Inequalities' Part 4: 'Digital Libraries, Reference Services and Citation Indexing' Part 5: 'Digitisation of Rare, Valued and Scholarly Works' Part 6: 'Futuristic Developments of Digitisation' Topics covered include electronic theses, search engine technology, digitisation in Africa, citation indexing, reference services, the Scholarly Publishing and Academic Resources Coalition, new media and scholarly publishing. The final chapter explores virtual libraries, and poses some interesting questions for possible futures. The book will be of particular interest to information professionals, educators, librarians, academics and I.T. and knowledge experts. Ruth Rikowski concludes by indicating that: "...hopefully, the book will provide a source of inspiration for further research, leading to some more effective ways to proceed with the digitisation process. Also, that it will be possible to do this within a framework that can be used for good rather than ill, and for the benefit of many." Reviewer: Eric Jukes (Formerly of College of Haringey, Enfield and North East London) Book Rating: 5/5 Buy this book from Amazon  Review Summary

"Social networking software sites are often mistakenly called learning communities, betraying a significant lack of agreement or concern for what actually constitutes a community. However, social networking sites are being used by teachers to engage students in dynamic ways, and by learners as vehicles for constructing their own, very personal learning environments and communities. This paper draws on lessons we have learned about building personal learning environments and virtual communities from our research and experience in formal and non-formal learning environments. It addresses the key questions of how can we construct, maintain and usher out communities, who joins communities, and what characteristics of communities seem to be shared across learning environments. The paper also questions whether the label "community" is actually a failed metaphor for something that seems to be much too dynamic and elusive to capture with a single construct. "

"A superb platform for creating 3D virtual reality environments to view on your mobile device. Choose from the bank of 3D models or upload/search for your own. You can create sequential scenes like a presentation which is great for story writing or even teaching. Create virtual museums or even a digital class display of pupil's work to share with parents."

Quickclass, virtual learning environment for film schools to teach filmmaking. Purpose-built platform for private, flipped, goal-orientated learning.

Quickclass, virtual learning environment for film schools to teach filmmaking. Purpose-built platform for private, flipped, goal-orientated learning.

The 5th Plymouth e-Learning Conference will examine the theme of e-learning in a time of change, and will challenge notions of traditional boundaries, learning spaces and roles. We will focus on new practices, new technologies, new environments and new learning. There will be primary, secondary and tertiary education threads. We invite papers on the digital divide, e-learning methods and case studies, mobile and pervasive technologies, digital games, multi-user virtual environments, informal learning, new classroom technologies (PDAs interactive whiteboards, etc), personal learning environments, visual media (videoconference, digital photography), e-portfolios and social software (wikis, blogs, podcasting, etc).

,Virtual Macbeth was designed to demonstrate how we might best use the affordances of virtual environments for Education. Shakespeare’s Macbeth reimagined in Second Life provides an adaptive bridge between classic texts and new media technology.

If you want to know where to get started with Film learning with Educators and young people, start with Quickclass. It's emerged as one of the front-running virtual Film learning environments.

If you want to know where to get started with Film learning with Educators and young people, start with Quickclass. It's emerged as one of the front-running virtual Film learning environments.

Chris Dede's fundamental interest is the expanded human capabilities for knowledge creation, sharing, and mastery that emerging technologies enable. His teaching models the use of information technology to distribute and orchestrate learning across space, time, and multiple interactive media. His research spans emerging technologies for learning, infusing technology into large-scale educational improvement initiatives, policy formulation and analysis, and leadership in educational innovation. He is currently conducting funded studies to develop and assess learning environments based on modeling and visualization, online teacher professional development, wireless mobile devices for ubiquitous computing, and multiuser virtual environments. Dede also is active in policy initiatives, including creating a widely used State Policy Framework for Assessing Educational Technology Implementation and studying the potential of developing a scalability index for educational innovations. From 2001 to 2004, he served as chair of the Learning & Teaching area at HGSE.

"In a few years from now, students in schools all over the world will receive part of their education in virtual learning environments. Wearing VR-goggles the students will be able to enter 3-dimensional, simulated places and situations that they would normally not have access to because it would be too expensive, too dangerous or physically impossible. Teaching via VR-technology is spreading widely and international studies predict that this will revolutionise the way we learn."

This is a MUST TRY site. It's not often that I'm amazed be an educational resource, but I am with this one. Pora Ora is a stunning educational virtual world for Primary school aged students. Play truely fun educational games which practise skills in English, maths and many other subjects. The graphics and useably is superb. Online safety is at the heart of this site. The parential admin account can set the student's account to free chat with everyone to completely locked down where they have the world to themselves and everything in between. The site has a language filter and users can report any incidents of trouble. Also, the first task requires the user to complete an online safety task. The site is free with a few premium features coming out later. You have got to try this one! http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/ICT+%26+Web+Tools

An amazing set of resources to explore the world's oceans in a 3D virtual environment. Swim with killer whales or drift along and watch sea turtles cruise by. You can even complete missions, including exploring the deepest place in the oceans. http://ictmagic.wikispaces.com/Science

The OpenLearn website gives free access to course materials from The Open University. The LearningSpace is open to learners anywhere in the world.

Nice and elegant implementation of Moodle Virtual Learning Environment by The Open University of UK, loaded with the bunch of courses made available as open content.

Collaborative web conferencing environment enabling synchronous communication using video and audio or through text chat, and to share presentations, documents and images on an interactive whiteboard.